The memory of a beloved pet inspires one couple's fight against injustice.

Leaderboard 728 X 90

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Here is evidence of a con job that Rob Riley's lawyers pulled in the defamation case that sent me to jail

Jay Murrill

If you ever are in a court case and complain that the opposing side is writing orders for the judge, a lawyer is likely to say something along the lines of, "Oh, that's common practice. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it."

That, of course, is easy for him to say. He hasn't been in a case where the opposing party is writing orders, which include wildly inaccurate citations to law, and he winds up in jail because of it.

I have been in that position. In fact, I'm going to show you exactly how an opposing party can write orders that are not remotely supported by law--and a compromised judge is so lazy and corrupt (or both) that he lets it go.

We are talking about Judge Claud Neilson's order that granted a preliminary injunction against me in the Rob Riley and Liberty Duke defamation case. Evidence in the record suggests that members of Riley's own law firm, probably Jay Murrill in most instances, wrote every order in the case--and Neilson simply rubber stamped them.

Was this an important order? Well, it caused me to go to jail for five months. It also was intended to send my wife, Carol, to jail--even though she had nothing to do with writing, editing, or administering my blog. Thankfully, Shelby County, Alabama, sheriff's deputies failed to abduct her, and she was able to spread news about what had happened to me--turning the case into a national and international news story, with reports from The New York Times, Al-Jazeera, and many lesser known news outlets of both the mainstream and non-traditional varieties.

In Neilson's order, Riley's lawyers cite 13 cases that purport to show that a preliminary injunction is a lawful remedy in a defamation case. The citations start in the second paragraph on page 2 and continue in Footnote 3. (You can read the order at the end of this post.)

The Riley lawyers introduce their legal handiwork by stating: "Injunctive relief can be an appropriate and effective remedy to repeated and ongoing defamatory speech." To support this notion, they cite a case styled South v. City of Mountain Brook, 688 So. 2d 292 (Ala Crim. App., 1996), followed by a footnote that refers the reader to 12 other cases that supposedly say more or less the same thing.

There is a slight problem, however, with all of this. The South case does not remotely say what Team Riley claims it says--and neither do the 12 cases cited in the footnotes. I'm not the only individual to make note of this--so have multiple legal experts.

As First Amendment expert Ken White wrote at the Popehat blog, "It appears that the drafter of this order simply scoured the nation for the handful of outlier cases saying something positive about injunctions against defamation — plus the tiny number of cases approving them pretrial — while completely ignoring the authority (including from the United States Supreme Court) that such injunctions are inappropriate." Actually, it's worse than that--none of these cases says anything positive about injunctions against defamation, and none of them approved an injunction pretrial.

On top of that, almost all of them are from state courts outside of Alabama or federal district courts. In other words, they have zero precedential value--even if they were remotely on point, which they aren't.

What is the truth, from a legal standpoint? Neilson's preliminary injunction runs contrary to more than 200 years of First Amendment law; it's a classic "prior restraint," and there is no law to support what he did--what Riley's lawyers asked him to do.

Here is a brief rundown of the cases Team Riley cites, with a description of their actual findings and links so you can read the cases yourself, if you so desire. It will soon become clear that Riley's lawyers committed a not-so-subtle fraud--and it caused me to unlawfully lose five months of my freedom:

Key holding: In the wake of Cochran's death, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated a state-ordered injunction but did not address the constitutional issues raised.

Our verdict: This is the only case on the Riley list that had the potential to set precedent in Alabama and throughout the country. But SCOTUS found that, because of Cochran's death, it would be unwarranted to address the issues raised by Tory's appeal.

Background: A woman was found at trial to have defamed the owners of a restaurant/bar that she felt had become a nuisance in her neighborhood.

Holding: A permanent injunction, after a finding of defamation at trial, can be proper if its terms are not overly broad and are limited. A preliminary injunction, which by definition comes before a trial, is unlawful.

Our verdict: Balboa's holding is the exact opposite of what Team Riley claims. It is a negative finding about preliminary injunctions.

Background: An Ohio recycling company claimed a competing company in Texas had made defamatory statements and engaged in tortious interference.

Holding: After Texamet failed to oppose summary judgment, a federal magistrate judge recommended certain damages, while acknowledging that his finding might cross the boundary into unlawful prior restraint. After Texamet failed to challenge the magistrate's recommendation, the district court upheld the damages and then remitted them, on certain conditions, while again acknowledging the problem of prior restraint. Strangely, the district judge claimed the case did not even involve an injunction. We can find no record that the case was appealed to a circuit court.

Our verdict: As the district judge stated, this case was not about an injunction; it was about a Texas company failing to adequately respond to a lawsuit brought against it in an Ohio federal court. The gist of the ruling is that Texamet did not defend itself, and here is a solid analysis of the court's actions, which really don't make much sense and almost certainly would be reversed if Texamet appealed.

We are roughly a fourth of the way through the cases cited in Judge Neilson's order. We will pick up with the rest of them in an upcoming post, and we promise that things won't look any better for Riley and his team. They lied about the real contents of the first four cases, and they lied about the rest of them, too.

The citation to South v. Mountain Brook, alone, is an embarrassment to the legal profession. South is a criminal case, it has nothing to do with civil matters, nothing to do with defamation or preliminary injunctions. This is some of the sloppiest, most dishonest legal work I've ever laid eyes on. Truly terrible.

Just an opinion, I'm not a lawyer and nothing is expressed, implied, construed as legal advice, and whatever else.

There is a saying that one who represents himself has a fool for a client, but I would rather be a fool than be fooled.

Make sure to have paper copies, screenshots, and backup of everything filed in the case because all of the electronic information can be altered or omitted. Remember the recount in the 2000 elections? That is why they love electronic machines. They are too easily manipulated. It was done in my case in three States! Federal and State levels. All had mandatory electronic filing, and for whatever reason a Judge--who ironically was in JAG Corps, was placed on my case--even though it was originally assigned to a Judge without associations to the military. I have a file that was replaced in its entirety and the Marine Corps lost it too! The Freedom of Information Act request returned information that shows JAG deleted what had been written, similar to track changes in a word document. Conscientiousness can get us convicted in this absurd and broken system.

Alabama has systematically violated the U.S. Constitution. I believe the Alabama Constitution has had 800 or more Amendments. Corrupt to the core but the truth will come out eventually. God is my witness.

It is sad that those serving honorably in the United States military have to go to United Nations for their right to bodily integrity, a human right. There is an article in Mother Jones that mentions that the UN may intervene due to the US' inadequate policies regarding sexual assaults.

There was an interesting story that I watched on tv. It was a criminal case, and the lawyer came across some information of his client's innocence but for ethical or other reasons, he could not disclose the information. The lawyer wrote an affidavit and after his death, for whatever reason, the affidavit was presented as evidence and freed his former client. I do not know the name of the show but I found that interesting. I hope that you find a lawyer who can help you or a similar way to reserve your rights.

"Truth is stranger than fiction" and the official story is usually a cover-up. In my opinion, good lawyers are unicorns (they do not exist). Take care and all the best to you and your family.